


The History of Us: Pourquoi Pas

by Daisy Gamgee (DaisyGamgee)



Series: The History of Us [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyGamgee/pseuds/Daisy%20Gamgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1398 SR: Pippin is eight, Merry is almost sixteen, and Pervinca is eighteen. A discussion of marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The History of Us: Pourquoi Pas

AUTHOR'S NOTES: 1398 SR: Pippin is eight, Merry is almost sixteen, and Pervinca is eighteen. 

The meadows were lush and full, butterflies of all kinds thick on the wildflowers. Merry ran in the deep golden summer sunshine, way ahead of Pervinca; he'd reach the tree first this time for sure. 

"Oh, no, you don't!" Vinca laughed breathlessly, running as fast as her legs would take her. She could run like her Da's fastest ponies when she took a mind to, and Merry increased his speed to stay ahead of her.

Merry reached the tree and flung his arms around the trunk. "Ha! Beatcha!" Vinca slammed into him moments later and he picked her up, swinging her around and around and laughing with her.

"Hoy! Wait up!" A tow-headed boy of eight summers, his head barely visible over the top of the grass, bolted after them. Merry set Vinca down and ran to meet the child, lifting him high and spinning him against the blue sky.

"Keep up, Pip!" he exclaimed, and laughed at Pippin's expression. Merry set him on his feet and took his hand, and they walked over to meet Vinca.

"What're you going to give me for your birthday?" Pippin asked Merry, skipping along beside him. "It's next week! You'll be old!"

"Old! It's only sixteen. Vinca's lots older than that."

"Am not," Vinca objected languidly. She'd thrown herself to the ground and was chewing thoughtfully on a piece of sweetgrass.

Merry flung himself down next to Vinca, and Pippin settled himself between them in the crook of Merry's arm. Merry brushed dandelion puffs from the younger boy's hair.

"You'll be twice as old as me, Merry," Pippin pronounced, and smiled proudly at his sister. "See, I learnt my numbers, like you taught me."

"That you did, love," Vinca said, and kissed Pippin's cheek.

"So what're you going to give me?" Pippin asked Merry again.

"A kick in the backside," Vinca suggested, wagging her foot menacingly.

"No, that's your present, dunderhead," Merry said to her. "What do you want, Pip?"

Pippin twisted around to look at him thoughtfully, and Merry saw that the color of Pippin's eyes exactly matched the green of the grass they were lying on. An orange and black butterfly settled itself on the tip of Pippin's ear, but he didn't wave it away. The sight made Merry's heart skip a beat. 

"I want you to marry me, because I love you," Pippin answered.

Merry's eyes widened in shock and he heard Vinca barely stifle a choking cough. "Well. Uhm. Pippin. Uhm. I love you, too, but...well, boys can't be married to each other!"

Pippin frowned and sat up; the butterfly fluttered away. "Why not?"

"You're not even grown up, or anything," Vinca said. "Even if you weren't both boys." She pinched Pippin's ear. "So don't be stupid."

Pippin threw himself hard back into Merry's shoulder. "I mean it," he said, crossing his arms defensively and blinking back tears. "Will you marry me when we're old enough?" he asked Merry.

"You can't marry a boy!" Vinca said firmly and loudly. "No matter how old you are! You have to marry a girl!" 

"I don't want to marry some stupid girl!" Pippin shouted. "Girls are nasty and never do anything fun and always want to put bows in my hair and make me play with baby dolls. I don't like girls!"

"I'm a girl!" Vinca protested, offended.

"You are not," Pippin said. "You're just my sister."

"Well, I like that!" Vinca grumbled, and sat up. She smacked Merry's head. "I knew you've been spending too much time with the little pest. Wait 'til Pearl hears this one."

Pippin jumped to his feet and shoved Vinca hard back into the grass. "I hate you!" he bellowed down into her stunned face, and ran as hard as he could toward a copse of trees a few hundred feet away.

Merry got up quickly and called after Pippin, but the boy didn't look back or slow down. "What'd you have to do that for?" he asked Vinca with an angry frown. "He's just a child, he doesn't know any better."

"Well, if he didn't spend so much time with you, he wouldn't get these crazy ideas," Vinca countered, standing, hands on hips. "His own family hardly sees him. He's always off with you odd duck Brandybucks and that queer Baggins, chasing all over the shire like a pack of wild animals."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure he'd rather idle about with you and bake teacakes and watch his toenails grow or whatever boring, grumpy older sisters do all day." Merry's eyes narrowed. "You're jealous, Vinca. He'd rather be with me and you can't stand it."

"Meriadoc Brandybuck," Vinca sputtered, "you..."

"Oh, just shut up," he commanded, and shoved her aside. "I'm going to find him. You can sit here and turn green, for all I care." He ran off in the direction Pippin had gone, hoping the boy hadn't wandered too far into the glade and gotten lost. Pippin's sense of direction had always been a bit off for a hobbit.

Merry heard soft sobbing before he'd gotten fifty yards into the trees. He followed the sound to an old tree stump just past a young larch, and his heart ached for the lad, curled up into a ball and weeping miserably. Merry laid a hand on Pippin's shaking shoulders and squeezed gently.

"Go away," came a muffled voice, clogged with tears.

Merry sat on the stump next to him. The downed tree must have been massive: the stump would easily have seated four adult hobbits. The two lads took up but a curve of its rough circle.

"Leave me alone," Pippin said irritably, rubbing his face across his folded arms.

"Oh, I think I won't," Merry replied amiably. "Here, blow your nose." He pressed a pocket-handkerchief into Pippin's tight fist.

Pippin raised his head just enough to clear his nose of mucus and tears, eying Merry warily. "Do you hate me now?" he asked with a hiccup.

"Of course not. No, you keep it, I've another." Merry rubbed across Pippin's bent shoulders. "I could never hate you."

"What did I do wrong?" Pippin asked with a catch in his voice. "I don't understand what I said that was so wrong. And now Vinca's going to tell Pearl, and she won't let me see you anymore, and I don't even know why." He burst into tears anew. "But I do love you, Merry, more than anybody, and I don't understand why I'm not supposed to."

Merry pulled the younger boy close, feeling tears sting his own eyes. "It's not wrong to love me, Pippin. I love you, too, and it's never wrong to love somebody. But we can't get married, ever. Only a grownup boy and a grownup girl can be married to each other." He smoothed curls from Pippin's damp forehead. "That's all it is. But love is a good thing, always."

"But why not?" Pippin insisted. "Why can't boys be married to each other? Or even girls with girls. Yuck," he said, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

Merry searched his mind for an explanation an eight-year-old hobbit could understand. He didn't want to confuse Pippin with all the variations of love and marriage, or tell him that sometimes boys did want to marry boys, but that no one ever, ever talked about it. At least, not in polite company. Pippin wasn't old enough to understand those types of feelings, either, for which Merry was suddenly very grateful.  
"Well," he said finally, "because only a lad and a lass together can make a baby. And making a family is why people get married."

"But Old Dad Broadbelt and his wife have been married since time began, Da says, and they don't have any children."

Of course, Merry thought, of course Pippin would think of this. He sighed. "They thought they would have babies when they got married, which is why they got married, and when they couldn't, they were sad, I'll bet."

"Why did they stay married, then, if they couldn't have babies?"

"Because you don't stop loving somebody just because you can't have babies together." Merry winced, realizing he'd just led the argument back round to the beginning. "Botheration," he muttered under his breath.

"Well, I love you, and you love me, and we can't make babies, either!" Pippin threw up his hands in frustration. "It doesn't make any sense."

Merry knew Pippin was right: it didn't make sense, not really. He hugged Pippin close and set his chin on the soft brown curls with a sigh. "Listen. You need to trust me about this. When you're older, much older, it will make sense, because you'll start liking girls and want to have a family of your own someday."

"No, I won't," Pippin said with the solid conviction that only a child could express." But if you say so, Merry, then all right," he added. "But only because you say so."

"Good, then," said Merry with some relief.

They heard a familiar "ahem" behind them, and turned. Vinca stood next to the stump, smiling sheepishly. "Are you still talking to me?"

"Mmmph," Pippin replied, glowering, but Merry patted the stump, and Vinca sat next to him.

"I'm sorry," she said, gazing up at the canopy of branches overhead. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

"Me, or Pippin?"

"Uh-huh." Vinca ground her toes into the grass at the foot of the stump. "Sorry," she offered again.

"Me, too," Merry replied, and affectionately bumped her shoulder with his own. "S'alright. Right, Pip?"

Pippin set his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, and snorted.

Merry nudged him. "Pippin."

Pippin glared at Vinca, who smiled in return.

"I won't tell Pearl anything," she said. "It's none of her business no how, the meddling old cow."

Pippin jumped up with a squeal and hugged his sister so hard she grunted. "I'm still not going to marry any dumb girl," he asserted.

"Oh, marry a nasty old Dwarf, for all I care," Vinca said, ruffling his hair. "Now come on, you two, I have butterflies to catch."

"Not if I get to them first!" Pippin shot off through the trees back to the meadow.

"You know," Vinca said to Merry, "you were right. I am jealous." She punched his arm. "I'll never have anybody to love me that much, or follow me everywhere, or hang on my every word."

"Yes, you're right, you poor thing," Merry sighed, and danced backwards, laughing, when she kicked at him. "Except maybe for Durgo Bracegirdle. He told me last week he thinks you're pretty. I told him he's blind!" Merry dodged a grab to his hair. "And all your babies with him will have webbed feet and round ears and twelve fingers. Ow!"

"Come ON!" Pippin shouted in the distance. "There's red birds, too! Come see, Merry!"

"Go see, Merry!" Vinca said, and pushed him in the back, running ahead. Merry caught up to her, yanked the ribbons from her hair, and followed Pippin's voice back into the sunshine. 

@@end@@


End file.
